KEY POINTS:
Sixteen years ago a report into the second World Cup concluded it should be held in one country.
The 1991 tournament had been held in Britain and France and the review concluded that the cross-border concept had been too disjointed and confusing. Never again, the IRB said.
South
Africa showed the way as a single host in 1995 before there was another monumental mess in 1999 when Wales hosted the tournament with games in England and France. Sanity eventually prevailed four years ago when New Zealand obliged by bailing out as sub-host, as Australia held a slashing good tournament.
France are doing the same this time. But, and it is a big but, there is the extra nonsense of four games in Cardiff and two in Edinburgh as payback for those nations voting for France as tournament host. That Wales and Scotland should benefit from playing two home games each in a World Cup hosted by France is both unfair and disgraceful.
All Blacks fans are the worst affected, having to shell out for expensive one-off trips to both cities if they wanted to support their team in Edinburgh then a quarter-final next week in Cardiff .
The games-for-votes deal is about to bite France on its derriere, though. Unless Argentina make a mess of their final pool game against Ireland, France will finish as runner-up to them in Pool D and will be heading abroad to play the All Blacks in Cardiff.
It is grim enough that spectators in France have been robbed of seeing all 48 matches inside their borders, but for them to face the real prospect they could exit their tournament in Cardiff is a promotional calamity.
Shameful, too, but France were always facing that derision when they stumbled against the Pumas in the opening World Cup match.
The battling leaders of the rugby world do move slowly, but you would have thought the IRB might have got the message after 1991. But at the mollusc-like momentum the IRB moves at, it is apposite that in the host land of the snail, there has been another slither in 2007.
France grubbed around for votes and now face the real threat of a tournament without them for the last fortnight. All Blacks against France in a quarter-final.
No problem if that is the way the draw pans out.
But at Stade de France please, not the Millennium Stadium.
And how odd that Marseille gets two quarter-finals while Toulouse, where rugby pulses pound with greater conviction than anywhere else in France, miss out on anything but a few pool games.
If France do not win their quarter-final, it will be intriguing to feel the mood of the nation, to see if the festivities carry on through to the end of October.
